According to a report in CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/12/07/c64/index.html ), folks are gathering today to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64 computer. Those of you under 30 may not remember this gem of a machine. It wasn’t my first computer, but it was probably my favorite. The amount of hacking and modding you could do with these things was incredible. I cut my teeth on BBS’s (Bulletin Board Systems) using my 300 baud modem. Yes, 300 baud, if you happen to recall what a baud is. For comparison, 56,000 baud (56k) is about the fastest dial in you can get today, and then it jumps to broadband.
I remember way back when I was the third person in my area to upgrade to a 1200 baud modem. And would you believe at first I didn’t like it? With my old 300 I could easily read my e-mail as it scrolled onto the screen. With the 1200 it zipped by so fast I had to go learn all the message scrolling commands for the various BBS’s I dialed into.
I’m something of a packrat; I still have a lot of “ancient” computers in my home-office closet. TRS-80’s, Radio Shack Color Computers, parts of a Timex Sinclair, and a Commodore Amiga. But the one that’s still setup on my desk is a Commodore 128, with a stack of drives, software, and even a Commodore 1702 monitor. I find it relaxing to fire it up every so often and play some old fashioned arcade games, or play some of that old midi music.
Happy Anniversary Commodore 64!
